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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639197">turn to dust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificentbirb/pseuds/magnificentbirb'>magnificentbirb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ATEEZ (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Diary Film 'verse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Minor Character Death, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:00:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,613</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639197</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificentbirb/pseuds/magnificentbirb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hongjoong watches them—his only friends, his beloved family—and hopes that he hasn’t somehow ruined everything.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>OT8 - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>turn to dust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i've been having time travel feelings ever since i saw <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ATEEZ/comments/isay97/what_do_you_want_to_see_next_comeback/g56tduz/">this theory</a> on reddit and i made myself sad so i figured i'd share. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ</p><p>title from "to build a home" by the cinematic orchestra.</p><p>enjoy~!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hongjoong notices it obliquely, at first. The way San will sometimes pause mid-sentence, his brow furrowing gently, as though he’s lost, disoriented, hunting for something deep in his mind, and then—like a switch flipping—his face clears, and he laughs his bright laugh, and the moment is forgotten.</p><p>But not by Hongjoong.</p><p>Hongjoong watches San closely, after that, his heart in his throat. He suspects what’s happening, and it terrifies him. Every time San pauses, every time Yunho takes a beat too long to respond to a simple question, every time Jongho seems to drift while they’re hanging out, his gaze turning vague, like he’s trying to recall some distant memory; Hongjoong notices it all. </p><p>Hongjoong watches them—his only friends, his beloved family—and hopes that he hasn’t somehow ruined everything.</p><p>*</p><p>Hongjoong did it for the first time after Mingi left.</p><p>Hongjoong still remembers walking into the warehouse in the aftermath of the fight, the way the humid air hung heavy on their skin, the way no one spoke. Jongho was missing, as were Mingi and Yeosang. Wooyoung and San sat on opposite ends of the dusty leather couch, not looking at each other. Seonghwa stood apart from them, arms crossed, watching Yunho pace.</p><p>“What happened?” Hongjoong asked, anxiety clawing its icy way up his throat. </p><p>“Mingi and Jongho fought,” Seonghwa said, voice crisp, sharp.</p><p>“What? Why?” Hongjoong said. “Where are they now?”</p><p>“No idea,” Wooyoung muttered. He was picking at his cuticle, Hongjoong remembers, and on any other day, San would have caught his hand, kept him from making himself bleed, but San was too busy glowering at the floor. “Jongho punched Mingi and stormed out, and then Mingi said he was leaving, too, and he just. Bailed. Yeosang went to catch him, but he lost him at the bus station. Mingi already had his headphones in.”</p><p><em> Hiding</em>, Hongjoong remembers thinking, his heart skipping, because he knew Mingi, knew that defense mechanism, knew that was how they could lose him, and his mind rebelled at the very idea. It felt like their group was splitting at the seams, tentative bonds unraveling in a matter of hours, and Hongjoong refused to allow it.</p><p>“No,” Hongjoong remembers saying, backing away from the rest of his friends, panic starting to boil in his gut. “No, I can—we can fix this. I’ll go find them.”</p><p>“How’re you going to find them?” Yunho asked, finally pausing in his pacing for long enough to frown at Hongjoong, and Hongjoong knew that Yunho wasn’t actually angry at him, was probably just frustrated by the fight, but his gaze was fiery, and Hongjoong remembers wanting to cower. “Jongho’s phone is off, and you know Mingi won’t let himself be found when he’s like this.”</p><p>“It’s over,” San mumbled then, staring at his palms.</p><p>“What?” Wooyoung sounded breathless, betrayed.</p><p>San didn’t even look up. “I move in a few days,” he said, quietly. “This was our last week together, and you know Mingi won’t forgive Jongho that easily, not after that. So.” He shrugged. “This is it.” </p><p>And that was when Hongjoong decided. He had a secret, after all; a secret of gleaming bronze and smooth glass and shimmering grains of sand. He’d never used it before, had always been too afraid of what it might do, of what that might mean, but now… </p><p>“No,” Hongjoong remembers saying again, voice low and firm. “No, I’m going to fix this. You just… stay here. Please. I’ll be back.”</p><p>He didn’t go back.</p><p>Instead, he ran home, closed himself into his darkening bedroom, lit by the hazy setting sun. He knelt beside his bed and reached beneath it, drawing out the heavy black box that contained his secret, dark curved bronze, heavy glass bulbs, sand that seemed to emit its own eerie silvery light. </p><p>Hongjoong set the hourglass carefully on the ground, watched as the grains of sand shifted in the bottom bulb, trickling over each other in tiny, glimmering dunes. Hongjoong wet his lips; his mouth felt dry with nerves. He briefly closed his eyes, thinking of his friends as they were just the day before, laughing together in the warehouse, limned in dusty sunlight: Wooyoung teaching them all dance moves he’d learned, Jongho jokingly heaving a basketball at Yunho’s head after Yunho teased him for missing a shot, Yeosang letting out a startled laugh as Mingi hooked an arm around his shoulder and dragged him over to play a game of cards. Hongjoong focused on those memories, on the warm longing that brimmed in his chest as he thought of his friends, and then he took a deep breath, grasped the bronze handle of the hourglass, and flipped it.</p><p>For one breathless second, nothing happened, and dread twisted in Hongjoong’s heart, but then the gentle susurrus of trickling sand grew louder, and louder, until it was all Hongjoong heard, and the world shifted around Hongjoong and whisked him backwards into bottomless darkness, where he remained, floating, lost, suffocating, until— </p><p>Hongjoong opened his eyes to bright sunlight. He dragged in gasping breaths, blinking stars away. The hourglass sat innocently on the ground in front of him, all of the sand once again pooled glistening into the bottom bulb. </p><p>Panicked, Hongjoong staggered to his feet and bolted out of his room, out of his apartment, down the stairs, down the street, knocking shoulders with a confused older man, ricocheting off an unfamiliar boy who called rude things after him, but Hongjoong didn’t stop, couldn’t stop until he reached the closed doors of the warehouse. Only there did Hongjoong pause, panting, suddenly terrified to open them, terrified to find that his secret didn’t work, that everything was the same, that— </p><p>Laughter.</p><p>Hongjoong’s heart leapt. He wrenched the doors open, and the laughter stopped, but only in surprise as seven familiar, beautiful, beloved faces turned his way.</p><p>“Hyung?” Jongho asked, still smiling slightly, basketball poised and ready to throw at Yunho’s head. “Is everything okay?”</p><p>Hongjoong grinned at them, his heart racing, his eyes prickling.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said. He glanced at his watch, an afterthought. The date was set to the day before, and it was early afternoon, not late evening, as it had been when Hongjoong last looked at it. “Yeah,” he said again. He felt like he was flying. “Everything is perfect.”</p><p>*</p><p>Sometimes Hongjoong forgets what ends up erased when he fixes things.</p><p>There was one time, when San was forced to leave—when San’s uncle showed up at the warehouse, broad-shouldered and livid, grabbed San roughly by the bicep, and dragged him out the door, leaving them all stunned and heartbroken in his wake—that Hongjoong erased a bit too much, trying to give himself as much time as possible to help San run away.</p><p>Yunho had done this impression, the morning before San was dragged away; some celebrity who had been on a reality show the night before, and they’d laughed over it for what felt like hours, until their sides hurt and a single glance at Yunho would set them all off again.</p><p>Hongjoong saved San, that time. He managed to convince San that he should hide at Seonghwa’s house instead of the warehouse on that Thursday morning, on the off chance that maybe San’s uncle would get so frustrated looking for him in all the usual places that he would eventually just give up and leave on his own, as he’d threatened to do plenty of times before, leaving San behind like it was a punishment instead of the gift San wanted.</p><p>Hongjoong saved San that day. He kept them all together.</p><p>But a few days later, when they were all tired and sweaty after a full afternoon spent in the unventilated air of the warehouse, Hongjoong made a lazy quip about Yunho’s celebrity impression, accent and all, and was met with only confused silence and curious stares.</p><p>“What’s that from, hyung?” Mingi asked.</p><p>Alarm spiked icy in Hongjoong’s chest. He looked helplessly to Yunho, not quite believing yet, but Yunho too was watching him with clear eyes, waiting patiently for an explanation.</p><p><em> Oh</em>. </p><p>Hongjoong hurriedly brushed it off as some silly joke he’d heard on TV the night before, but as the conversation continued without him, dread began to curdle in his gut.</p><p>He felt terribly like he’d just stolen something.</p><p>*</p><p>“This summer seems long,” Wooyoung says one day, sprawled on the grass at the park, and Hongjoong’s heart stutters in his chest. </p><p>It’s just the two of them, for now, lying in the dappled shade of a large oak tree. Seonghwa is off buying snacks somewhere, and Jongho dragged Yeosang off a while back to watch a busker near the entrance of the park.</p><p>“Oh?” Hongjoong hopes his voice doesn’t waver, doesn’t somehow give away the eight times he’s flipped the glimmering hour glass in his bedroom, keeping them all in this long, seemingly endless summer. Keeping them all together. “How so?”</p><p>“I dunno.” Wooyoung stretches languorously, his hands curling into fists over his head. “Just feels like we should be due to start classes again sometime soon, right? Like, it feels like it has to be almost September at this point, but somehow it’s still only the beginning of August. It’s weird.”</p><p>“Huh.” Hongjoong’s heart is racing now. “Yeah, I—I suppose it has felt like a long summer. Isn’t that good, though?”</p><p>“I guess so,” Wooyoung says. Hongjoong glances sidelong at him; Wooyoung is frowning slightly at the leaves above them, his lips pursed and pouting. “I mean, I never thought I’d complain about a longer summer, you know? I just feel weirdly… tired, I guess. Like I haven’t really been resting, or like I’ve run a marathon that I don’t remember running.”</p><p>“Take a nap, then,” Seonghwa jokes as he joins them beneath the tree, a plastic bag swinging from one hand, stuffed full of what looks like ice cream bars.</p><p>“I will after my ice cream,” Wooyoung says, making grabby hands for Seonghwa’s bag. Seonghwa laughs at him and drops an ice cream bar onto his chest.</p><p>“You want one?” Seonghwa says, holding the bag out to Hongjoong, but Hongjoong barely hears him. He feels flushed, panicky. He scrambles to his feet, ignoring Wooyoung’s startled glance and Seonghwa’s subtle frown, and brushes grass from his ripped jeans and the back of his shirt, which sticks to his skin in the late summer humidity.</p><p>“You okay?” Seonghwa asks, his voice terribly soft, and Hongjoong suddenly, absurdly, wants to cry.</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” Hongjoong says. “Just a bit dizzy. Gonna take a little walk.”</p><p>“Do you need water?” Wooyoung asks.</p><p>“Maybe,” Hongjoong says, already walking away from them. “I’ll go find some. Really, I’m fine, don’t worry, I’ll—I’ll be back.”</p><p>He doesn’t go back.</p><p>But neither does he loop again, too scared to touch the hourglass, not after Wooyoung’s concerns. Instead he begs off with sun poisoning in a vague text message, stifles a small sob on the bus home when he receives Seonghwa’s concerned response urging him to take a cool shower and properly rehydrate, and locks himself in the darkness of his bedroom, trying not to think about the hourglass tucked and glowing beneath his bed, waiting for him, a curse disguised as a gift.</p><p>*</p><p>It happens again, but this time something is different. </p><p>This time Hongjoong can’t stop it.</p><p>It starts the same. Mingi says something thoughtless, a casual jab disguised as a joke. Jongho snaps, lunges. Yeosang doesn’t catch him in time, San can’t keep them apart. Jongho starts to storm off, Mingi reaches for his headphones, but this time— </p><p>This time someone’s phone vibrates.</p><p>Mingi freezes, eyes wide, and reaches for his phone.</p><p>Hongjoong, watching it all with Seonghwa from across the room, his heart in his throat, reaches for his, too.</p><p>It’s 5:07, and there’s a single message on his phone, from Wooyoung.</p><p>
  <em> yunho’s in the hospital </em>
</p><p>Hongjoong’s ears start to buzz. He struggles to focus on the phone screen, realizes distantly that his hand has begun to tremble. He hears voices around him, worried voices, familiar voices, pitched loud and turning frantic, demanding answers. Hongjoong realizes only belatedly that Seonghwa is trying to talk to him, asking him whether he’s all right.</p><p>“Fine,” Hongjoong mumbles. His phone screen has darkened in his hand. He taps it again. It’s 5:08 now. The message is still there. “I’m fine.”</p><p>Hongjoong starts walking before he even registers moving, ignoring San calling after him, Seonghwa trying to grab his elbow. Hongjoong is single-minded. He shoves his phone into his pocket, heads for the old leather couch, beneath which he’s hidden a large dark box and a shimmering bronze miracle and the way to save Yunho, the way to <em> fix this</em>, just in case it’s too late, just in case Yunho is—Yunho is—  </p><p>“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says, right behind Hongjoong as Hongjoong crouches beside the couch and drags out the dusty black box. “Hongjoong, what’re you doing?”</p><p>“I can fix this,” Hongjoong says. His voice wavers; he ignores it. “I can help, I can save him, I—I’ll fix it.” Hongjoong hesitates for a moment before opening the box, because he’s never shown this to any of them before; it’s always just been his secret, his burden to bear, but Seonghwa won’t remember this, anyway—none of them will—so he opens the box and pulls out the hourglass, sets it on the rickety old table near the couch.</p><p>Seonghwa’s eyes widen as he catches sight of it. </p><p>“Hongjoong,” he says, breathless with an emotion that sounds awfully close to horror. “Is that…? Wait, he might—Yunho might be okay, can’t you just—can you wait—?”</p><p>“I’m going to fix it,” Hongjoong says, barely listening to Seonghwa, barely realizing what Seonghwa said, what it means. Hongjoong grasps the hourglass and lets out a tremulous breath, picturing the day before, a good day, when they were all together, it was a <em> good day</em>— </p><p>“Hongjoong, please,” Seonghwa whispers, sounding terrified. “Please, not again—”</p><p>And that finally snaps Hongjoong back. He freezes with his hand on the hourglass, wide-eyed, staring up at Seonghwa.</p><p>“What did you just say?” he breathes.</p><p>“Please don’t—” Seonghwa says, but then Jongho yells over to them, “What’re you two doing? We have to go!”</p><p>“Wooyoung said there was an accident!” That’s Mingi, already running for the doors, phone in hand, San hot on his heels. “Something with a truck? We’re gonna grab a cab!”</p><p>Hongjoong meets Seonghwa’s eyes again, and his heart breaks.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Hongjoong whispers, trembling. “I’m so sorry, I have to, I—it’s Yunho.” </p><p>And he flips the hourglass.</p><p>Hongjoong will never forget the way Seonghwa’s face falls as the sand starts to shift, the way Seonghwa closes his eyes as though he’s preparing himself for something he’s experienced countless times before, bracing for an impact that Hongoong has sent him careening into.</p><p><em> Not again</em>, Seonghwa said. <em> Please, not again. </em></p><p>And as the world dims and whips Hongjoong into that familiar, suffocating darkness, he wonders: <em> How long has he known? </em></p><p>*</p><p>Hongjoong’s breath is ragged in his throat. His lungs burn, his heart races, his feet pound against the pavement, keeping desperate time. With every pump of his arms, his phone comes back into view, the screen still glowing, that last message from Wooyoung, igniting urgency in his gut:</p><p>
  <em> i’m with yunho and his brother, we just left the restaurant </em>
</p><p>Those words hang like a pall over Hongjoong’s heart as he sprints down the street, dodging figures whose faces register only as blurs, unimportant, unclear.</p><p>
  <em> we just left the restaurant </em>
</p><p>Hongjoong catches someone in the shoulder, knocking them both sideways. He stumbles, stammering an automatic apology even as his phone flies from his hand, landing on the pavement with a clatter, the screen going dark. Hongjoong leans over, panting, his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. He stares at his phone on the ground. Part of the screen has shattered, hairline fractures spiderwebbing from the top left corner of the glass. Hongjoong squeezes his eyes shut, briefly overwhelmed by visions of a memory that hasn’t happened yet, a shattered windshield, blood streaked on pavement.</p><p>
  <em> we just left the restaurant </em>
</p><p>Hongjoong scoops up his phone and starts to run again. The restaurant is just down the block, around the next corner, and— </p><p>Hongjoong finds dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, hears a familiar laugh.</p><p>“Wooyoung-ah!” Hongjoong’s voice is louder than intended, desperate, and Wooyoung’s eyes are wide when he turns to him.</p><p>“Hyung,” he says, startled. “What are you—?”</p><p>“Where’s Yunho?” Hongjoong gasps, panting through the stitch in his side. </p><p>“He’s over there, with—<em>hyung!</em>” Wooyoung calls after Hongjoong as Hongjoong shoves past him, but Hongjoong ignores him, because he can see them now, Yunho beaming, laughing at something his brother just said, standing together near the street corner. Hongjoong watches, despairingly, as the light changes, as the walk signal shifts, and Yunho steps out into the road.</p><p>“YUNHO-YA!” Hongjoong screams, and Yunho freezes, eyes wide, turning to Hongjoong in shock.</p><p>“Hyung—” he says, and then Hongjoong is there, grasping his elbow, dragging him away from the street, away from the truck that he knows—he <em> knows</em>—is about to speed through the light and destroy everything, and for a second, one <em> wonderful </em> second, Yunho staggers against him, startled and safe and <em> alive</em>, but just as Hongjoong is about to let himself breathe, because he did it, he <em> saved him</em>, he hears a shriek, the blare of a horn, screeching tires, and a terrible, sickening crash.</p><p>Time seems to freeze.</p><p>Hongjoong hears his own gasping breaths, his pounding heart, and he makes eye contact with Yunho for a single awful, endless moment before Yunho turns away towards the street. Horror dawns on Yunho’s face, and Hongjoong squeezes his eyes shut, chokes on his own heart, tightens his fingers around Yunho’s arm even as Yunho wrenches away from him with a broken, heart-wrenching cry.</p><p>“<em>HYUNG!</em>”</p><p>*</p><p>Seonghwa finds Hongjoong in the dark silence of the warehouse after the funeral.</p><p>Hongjoong is curled into the corner of the leather couch, his hands in his hair, his eyes swollen and staring and sore. He stopped crying hours ago, but the tears are still there, threatening, choking, a constant pressure at the base of his throat.</p><p>Seonghwa doesn't speak. Hongjoong hears the scuff of his shoes on the dusty floor, feels the couch sag a bit as Seonghwa sits beside him, but the silence hangs between them like a shade, suffocating and drawn fast.</p><p>Hongjoong gives in first, drawing a tremulous breath.</p><p>"I didn't mean to—"</p><p>"I know." Seonghwa's voice is soft, gentler than Hongjoong knows he deserves. </p><p>Hongjoong bites his bottom lip, hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says, the words scraped thin, half-broken.</p><p>"I know," Seonghwa says again.</p><p>Hongjoong presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, hard enough to see stars.</p><p>"How long have you known?" he whispers.</p><p>Seonghwa hums, low. "Jongho mentioned it, once. That he felt like he was losing time somehow. Forgetting things that he knew, deep down, never actually happened." Seonghwa pauses, and Hongjoong glances at him, watches Seonghwa lean forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together, looking calmly around the warehouse. "And then San kept telling me about these weird moments of deja vu he had, and once Wooyoung overheard us and said that he had the same dream. And not only once, either. At least three times. And you..." Seonghwa finally looks at Hongjoong, his eyes shining in the darkness, far too kind. His mouth curves into a tiny, crooked smile. "You don't exactly hide guilt very well, Hongjoong."</p><p>Hongjoong's heart twists. He closes his eyes, feels his face crumple.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says, yet again, knowing it might never be enough, not after this last time, not after what happened.</p><p>"I know." Seonghwa's voice is impossibly soft, the hand he lays on the back Hongjoong's neck even softer, and Hongjoong finally lets himself shatter.</p><p>*</p><p>Hongjoong doesn’t loop again after that, and eventually, inevitably, they splinter.</p><p>Yunho becomes distant after the loss of his brother. San starts at a new school. Mingi retreats back into himself, drifting from their circle, back to scraped knuckles and bloodied lips. Yeosang’s schedule fills, until he has no time for them. The summer drifts to a listless close, and the warehouse empties, and is locked.</p><p>Hongjoong spends a long time sitting in the muggy darkness of his bedroom the night before he’s due to start his own classes, staring at the glowing grains of sand pooled in the bottom of the hourglass. He hasn’t touched it since the day of the accident. Seonghwa has never mentioned it again, but Hongjoong sees the way Seonghwa watches him as each of their friends leaves. He felt Seonghwa’s eyes on him when Jongho stopped coming to meet them at the warehouse, when San came to say his final goodbye, no tears falling, only stony acceptance. Hongjoong wants nothing more than to try again, to fix it all again, to just go back to how it used to be, but all he hears in his mind is the screeching of tires and Seonghwa’s desperate pleas: <em> Not again. Please, not again. </em></p><p>Hongjoong lies back on his bed. When he closes his eyes, he sees his friends the way he will always remember them, laughing and golden. He sees falling sand, glittering behind glass. And just before he sleeps, he sees a masked face, eyes hidden behind the low brim of a hat, and an outstretched hand, waiting for the hourglass.</p><p>Hongjoong gives it to him.</p><p>*</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! comments and kudos are appreciated~ ♡</p><p>feel free to come yodel at me on twit if ya like:</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/aintitnifty">main account</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/magnificentbirb">writing account</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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